20/40 game at Canterbury, 5-handed

SB is bad. Rarely folds any street, bluffs a lot, calls down very light.
BB is roughly the same but folds slightly more, bluffs slightly less, and probably calls down even lighter.

BTN-2 is a good, winning player, but I barely have any history with him.
I'm in BTN-1
BTN is solid TAG but probably folds too much pre, especially short-handed. He's also running quite poorly.

BTN-2 opens, I 3-bet A8, somehow folds back to BTN-2 who calls.

Flop: K98
Villain check/raises and I 3-bet, with the intention of checking back most turn cards (anything that's not an 8 or A), and calling river if the board bricks off (no T, J, Q, or ).

My rough estimate for villain's preflop range, given our limited history, is probably 66+, JTs, Q9s+, QTo+, K8s+, KTo+, Ax (not sure if all or not).

Fold pre flop.

No offense intended, but yikes dude.

This.

I'm on the loose side and I think 3 betting me would be a mistake with A8o in those positions. I mean, the bottom of my Axo range there would be A8o or A7o if I'm feeling it. With the blinds as described, I'd be a bit tighter. You're either crushed by better Ax, flipping with JTs and the like, or gonna chop most of the time vs Axs unless you hit an 8.

Then the flop is a bet call imo.

Preflop is bad. Flop is worse. What are you hoping to accomplish by 3 betting bottom pair?

Yeah that's what I thought.

I was pretty sure I should have folded pre against this player (but imo it would be an easy 3! against one of the players that were in the blinds this hand) and basically wanted confirmation that this was poor.

If you somehow make it past pre, you say you'd b/c flop.
What's your turn plan?

I'm an online poker showdown monkey so I'd calldown any runout that didn't put four to a straight or four to a flush on the board.

That's probably bad vs 20 players though, but I wouldn't know.

I guess I was thinking that if I 3-bet now I can make better decisions on the turn and river. Which is probably a poor reason to do something in and of itself.

I would fold preflop. I might 3bet this hand from the BTN versus a CO open or from the SB versus a BTN open. I might also 3bet A8s here.

Flop is just terrible. You are behind versus his range, and your plan is to give a free card to the smallish portion of his range that you are ahead of. That sounds . . . bad. Just bet/call and then figure out what to do on various turn cards (I would probably fold any club and anything between Q and T, maybe also fold a 7, raise an 8 or an A, and call board pairing cards and true blanks).

You can get away with spew 3 betting the flop once or twice and muscle yourself to a cheaper showdown. You're opening yourself up to getting 4 bet incredibly wide when you 3 bet the flop, which is an absolute disaster for this hand (and I'd start auto-4 betting my combo draws and decent kings plus to exploit this tendency).

Just play poker. Know that the hands you're beating consist of a lot of Q, J, and T, and also a bunch of 's. If those don't appear on the turn or river, you probably have a profitable call down (and win more money the times he has one of those, and don't open yourself up to putting 4 bets in on the flop when smashed). If the turn is a Q, you can just fold.

This is actually a spot where a conventional TAG's bluffing range will be well defined and consist of hands like JT, QT, and the like.

Thankfully it's not a tendency and was out of the ordinary (which is why I posted it). I think playing so many hands against the other two might have affected how I played this hand against an actually good player.

Thanks for your analysis, it's much appreciated.

Onto a hypothetical:
Let's say villain swapped positions with one of the blinds on this hand (we'll say the big blind because I have so much history with him that I have a good handle on his range).
Range would be something like:
54s - 74s
65s - 95s
76s - T6s
87s+
22+
Ax
Q9o+
K9o+
any two broadway

Surely, the 3-bet with A8o has to be correct.
I'm assuming flop play is still incorrect, and we should still bet-calldown (barring horrible turns and rivers), yes?

If he's really three betting 3/8ths of the deck from the HJ, then yes, A8o is a fine 3 bet. And given how wide and drawy his range can be, bet/calling down would be the auto-play on brick runouts.

I'd fold pre but say its closer than others are saying. Having bad players playing OOP means we can play more hands profitably, but I would want to skew them towards suited hands or marginal broadway combos.

Since you've never played with him and he's pro, FSDR should work: I don't think its the default of a good player to 4b-barrel light.

Even better is flop checkback.

I would fold preflop but I prefer a coldcall to a 3bet. I'd probably coldcall A9o in this spot (with very bad blinds) fwiw.

My default is to fold pre flop. If I had 3 bet, I would check back this flop.

I would never have a cold calling range in this spot and if I did A9o would not be in it.

When I play 20-40 my main goal is to not let people fdsr me. That being said they try and do it at an absurd percentage and I'll basically 4 bet light vs anyone unless history dictates they are likely to have a good hand.

I'd expect him to 4 bet Kx+ near 100% and 4 bet J-T and some combo flush draws st a pretty high frequency as well.

I agree with you that if we have A-8s here uts a good flop to check back

I'm saying an unknown can pull off fsdrs against good players

Jon is saying an unknown at 20/40 can't vs. him.

Yes, I always assume they are going for the fsdr when they 3 bet the flop

i guess most perceive a flop b/3b line as a free card attempt or a tagfish line.

while the line almost every decent internet player during the early 2010s uses is to b/c flop and delay until the turn (with entire continuing range) or check back the flop with these sort of hands,

i actually do think b/3b is an ok strategy to use with the right mixture of cards. i think this hand is a great candidate to do so. it has 5 outs to improve and wants a cheaper showdown vs. a k/r.

against someone who 4b light, i'd migrate more sets into my b3b range. against someone who never 4b, i'd be able to showdown half a bet cheaper with a ton of hands.

thoughts?

also im not saying b/3b is a good strategy. i just still don't know why it's "bad" to this day. i think it's an okay strat adjustment to even tackle some thinking players.

i've been told to delay to the turn by almost every player I consider "good".

i get my range is behind villain's range after a flop k/r so i need to balance out my range for a street where the bet sizing is 2x bigger.

i get if i only b/3b good hands then my b/c range is super weak. i also get if i b/3b drawing hands, then my b/3b range is also easy to play against.

i also get from a theoretical viewpoint, bots will probably b/3b at a single digit percentage, so practically as humans we should b/3b close to 0.

however im trying to come up with a reason why it's a bad line to take against ppl who 4b too much or ppl who never 4b (i think a huge population falls in that category).

personally i think it's ok to take against many.

How many combos do you have on that flop that want to get into a raising war? Where does A8o fall on the equity spectrum?

This is what I think:

I think b/3b flops can be good and I actually do it fairly often. However, I think most players that do it tend to be horribly unbalanced leaning toward free card attempts at an alarmingly hi Frequency.

I've never said 3 betting flops is bad, but I do think constantly attempting to get free turn cards is pretty bad and I think most people just associate the former with the latter

Bet/3betting flops HU in position is pretty bad.

Not when you can get your opponent to 4 bet KT on K98 when you have AA or a set.

I did have a hand earlier in the session where I b/3b AA in position, called a 4-bet, and raised the turn.

So I really don't think it's universally horrible, but balancing it (without spewing, as I did in the OP hand) is certainly tricky.